I’m still thinking about the Rich Habits, as a variation, I suppose, on the Quantified Life.

There are clearly things apart from decisions about watching reality TV that influence poverty and wealth. There is also a difference between causation and correlation. Some commenters on the Rich Habits concept have gotten carried away, claiming that the rich read more because they have time to read, completely ignoring the fact that the poor spend even more time watching reality TV than the rich do reading. Others have gotten carried away in the other direction, associating wealth with virtue in a manner which completely overlooks people like George W. Bush.

But the habits seem reasonable. And keeping track seems reasonable, too. Whether it leads to wealth or not, the list of habits works for me. I didn’t do all of these things consistently before, but I’m now doing all of them — except changing my eating habits.

  • Exercise aerobically 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week.
  • Track your eating.
  • Eat less than 300 calories of junk food per day.
  • Avoid fast food
  • Floss daily.
  • Sleep at least 7 hours a night.
  • Set daily goals, in writing.
  • Spend 30 minutes each day reading for self-improvement.
  • Do everything in moderation.
  • Think before speaking.
  • Work toward developing relationships every day.

There are two months till the end of the year. I’ve met most of my goals for the year already – except the fitness goals. I can make those changes now. By New Year, when I can join everyone else in resolving to get in shape, I could have these good habits in place.

fitbit aqua

So here’s my Fitbit week — apart from Wednesday, when I left the tracker in my drawer, I took at least 5,000 steps each weekday, and Friday was over 7500. My four days of 30 minute cardio are visible.

rt9

And here’s my RescueTime week — a mere 54.5 hours at the computer this week.

I’d like a cool visual interface to track the other stuff, but I think I can manage without.

And surely a highly disciplined, generally successful, data-oriented person such as myself can manage to limit the Evil 6 better than I have been doing, faced as I now am with the evidence of my need to do so.